Monday, November 28, 2011

Embedded Help

PeopleTools 8.51.x provides a feature called as Embedded Help for scroll areas, grids, group boxes etc. Help icons now appear embedded in the headers of group boxes, scroll areas, and grids. Users click the Help icon on the page control to access pop-up Help messages that are stored in the Message Catalog. Embedded Help enables application users to view more granular, feature-specific help text that you create to be contextual to the page control or group of controls. The addition of embedded Help enables you quickly to add instructions, anecdotal observations from power users, reminders, or any type of message that supports your business processes. The addition of this type of Help can serve to keep users engaged in the task and to increase productivity.

Here is how it works.















%PBCTXT() - translates to the Help URL that is configured in the system.
Other commands provided by PeopleSoft are %PBURLTBL and %PBLNK. Refer to Peoplebooks for more information on these commands.

After entering a message, you associate the message to a page control. To associate help messages to scroll areas and grids:
  1. Open a page definition.
  2. Double-click the scroll area or grid to access the properties dialog box.
  3. Access the Label tab.
  4. In the Embedded Help Popup section, select the Message Catalog Popup option. 
  5. Enter the Message Set/Number values of the message that you want to appear in the embedded help pop-up page.
    The message should appear in the Text field.
  6. Verify that the message in the Text field is correct.
  7. Click the OK button.
  8. Save the page definition.
  9. In the browser, access the page and test the embedded help.